A balloon catheter with electrodes is well known and is generally used for diagnosis or treatment of a neurotic cystitis, an acraturesis, or the like. However, there is no example in which the balloon catheter with the electrodes has been used for diagnosis of the interstitial cystitis. Since a conventional balloon catheter with electrodes has exposed hard electrodes, it is not suitable for insertion into a bladder through a urethra.
There is a current perception threshold (CPT) inspection apparatus that has been recently developed to diagnose an abnormality of a peripheral nerve. This inspection apparatus evaluates an amount of a current stimulation at the lowest level that a subject can feel when a feeble alternating current is supplied to a pair of electrodes stuck on a skin of the subject. The CPT inspection apparatus is generally utilized in a measurement of a treatment effect (anesthesia), a measurement of an affected portion (plastic surgery), an evaluation of a diabetic peripheral neuropathy (medicine), a quantitative evaluation of a perceptive nerve (neurology), a diagnosis for distinguishing a disease between an impotence due to a neuropathy and a psychogenetic impotence (urology), an evaluation of an injury and a perception (dentistry), a quantitative measurement of a pharmacodynamics effect (pharmacology), and the like.
The above CPT inspection apparatus is also used in a urology to diagnose a urinary organ outside a body of the subject. However, the CPT inspection apparatus has not been used for diagnosis of the interstitial cystitis. The interstitial cystitis is a disease that has been found recently. A deterministic diagnosis has not been found yet, although there are many subconscious patients.
The interstitial cystitis is often caused in women in the ages of 20 to 60. The interstitial cystitis often appears as a symptom such as a pain in an upper part of a pubic bone, a thamuria, an urge uresiesthesia, or the like. In a typical mucosa observation, a canker-appears in line-like shapes on a bladder mucosa. Even in a lighter symptom, a spot bleeding appears on a substantially wide area of the bladder mucosa. A general inflammation is a phenomenon that occurs between the time when a tissue is injured and the time when the injured tissue heals. However, the tissue continues to heal in the interstitial cystitis.
Since pathology of the interstitial cystitis has not been resolved yet, a common reference of diagnosis has not been proposed. There are various common methods for diagnosing the interstitial cystitis, such as an endoscopy using a bladder mirror, an observation of an interior in the bladder utilizing an inflation by means of a water pressure, a bladder biopsy in which an inflammatory tissue is removed and inspected outside a body of a subject, and the like. However, any one of the above diagnosis methods is not convenient and precise.